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I do see the advantage of virtual albums or cataloges, but also the disadvantage: If the program crashes or if I am not happy with prices or poor developments in future, I loose all my information put in the cataloge when I move to another program.
Not if you 'write metadata to files'.
The second problem is: If I have a folder with all pictures and a subfolder with the nice ones and a subfolder with the ones with trees etc., how do I get this Information into the Organizer?
The answer is in the way you can assign keywords (tags) to all files in a folder or simply in selected files in a single step. You can also use albums ('collections' in older Elements versions or Lightroom).
The second problem is: If I have a folder with all pictures and a subfolder with the nice ones and a subfolder with the ones with trees etc., how do I get this Information into the Organizer? It would be great to have the option to import them, automatically recognize duplicates and assist in removing from disk, but preserving the information (like in tags, ratings, etc.).
In the organizer, just like in Lightroom, 'import' may be confusing: it is not a synonym of 'download'. When you 'get' pictures, they may be downloaded from a camera or card reader (implies downloading, copying) or you may simply register, index the information, location of the file and exif data, tags, ratings, captions, notes...
You can include a given physical files in several 'albums' for several purposes. That does not duplicate the file on the drive. That keeps the latest state of info available for each use of the file, which is not the case when you duplicate (copy) physical files.
Remember that you are free to also 'write metadata to files', which is used to make the information available to other softwares or simply as a redundant safety.
I fear, Adobe lost me as a customer ;-(.
That' your choice, you can choose a browser instead of a catalog organizing software.
For instance Adobe Bridge ...
(yes you dont need to subscribe to the Cloud for that).
I am not sure you have considered my previous answers:
If you really want to fool the organizer to create duplicates, export the copies elsewhere using a different jpeg compression. They won't be recognized as duplicates since their size will different. That will keep the metadata if 'you write metadata...'
You can import folder by folder (each imported folder with its children subfolders).
uweb62415820 wrote:
I can not confirm this behaviour. The organizer imports the subfolders first and because one subfolder contains all originals, no single picture is imported in the upper folder.
I'll have to check this, I may be wrong. Anyway the result is that there is no duplicate after the folder and subfolders are scanned.
But assuming I would like to schange my organization of the pictures, how would I transfer the information "being in subfolder1" to the upper folder so that I can remove the subfolder without loosing pictures and information?
Do you mean moving the pictures in the subfolders to the master folder?
You can select the files in a subfolder and drag and drop them in the master folder. The risk is to have files with the same name in the master folder before the move. That has to be done subfolder by subfolder
.
Or do you want to create a single folder from a master folder with many subfolders, sub-subfolders? There are solutions based on applying the same keyword and exporting in a new folder.
Obviously, Iam not good at explaining my problems 
. Thanks for your patience!
I will try again. I have a folderA with subfolderB and subfolderC. All pictures are in folderA and copies of the nice ones in subfolderB and copies of all with family members in subfolderC. I can delete both subfolders on my disk without loosing any pictures. But I would loose the information, which of the pictures were the nice ones or the ones with family members.
My question is, how do I get the information into the adobe organizer? Especially, when a picture is in all three subfolders?
My thought was to import subfolderB, mark all pictures with 5 stars or a tag, let it write to the files and copy them to folderA overwriting the existing files (which have the same name, if they are the same pictures). But this would not work for subfolderC with pictures that are in all three folders, because I would overwrite the tagged files from subfolderB.
Is there a better solution, if any?
I have a folderA with subfolderB and subfolderC. All pictures are in folderA and copies of the nice ones in subfolderB and copies of all with family members in subfolderC. I can delete both subfolders on my disk without loosing any pictures. But I would loose the information, which of the pictures were the nice ones or the ones with family members.
What you are describing is the dilemma for people wanting to use a folder hierarchy to assign properties to a collection (a batch) of files. It's true for the explorer/finder, it's obviously true if you use the organizer just like the explorer...
Let's take an example: you have a shot of an event involving members of your family (for some of the shots). You create a folder for the event. You create subfolders for family members, other subfolders for locations, for food... and you put a copy of the relevant files in the subfolders. Not only are you creating duplicates, which wastes disk space, but if you update or edit the original, the copies won't be updated.
The obvious answer from those using catalogs is simply to assign 'keywords' which will let you search and find your photos based on a combination of criterias: familiy member + location + activity + 4 stars....
When you are ready to assign keywords instead of copying dupes, you don't bother to change the folder structure. You can if you want to, but that is not necessary. A good organization of keywords, keyword categories, captions or albums can work even with a disastrous folder structure with a lot of duplicates which are ignored by the catalog.
In such a case, a solution to 'clean' your folder structure and ignore the dupes is to create a backup and restore on a custom location (new top master folder). The logical keyword organisation is kept, the folder structure is kept without dupes. You can then delete your original mess and see how much space you have got back.
uweb62415820 wrote:
Is there a setp-by-step guide how I would do this transition from folder-hierarchy to keyword-organized in the Adobe organizer?
I am interested in writing such a step by step guide. Be patient...
Well, I won't write a book about that.
Thinking about it, there is no single procedure that will fit everybody's requirements. Yours may be special and most of the time, those who undertake that job do change their goal along the road...
1 -The first step is to decide to start now. You don't know precisely where to go and worse, you may not have a good idea of the present state of your organization (or mess...) So take the time to assess the present situation and you own goal. It's not important to have a clear view from the start, but it's important to think about it.
2 - Be patient... Well, my best advice for that is to have a positive attitude and to be happy with all the small progress you'll make progressively. And, the first step once you have decided to tackle the job is to take a global backup of the present situation. Not only from the backup of the organizer (you probably have many files not already catalogued); an external drive backup may be useful.
3 - Start with deciding that from this day, you'll take the time to assign keywords, captions, ratings, notes to all new files in your computer. That helps to be positive and you'll soon get used to that new workflow and to master the search and organizing tools.
4 - For dealing with your existing library and catalog, don't be too global. Concentrating on eliminating all duplicates will lead to much frustration. Dealing with small amounts of data to clean up seriously is better. You'll assign keywords, categories, ratings, you'll create stacks or albums... and delete items without any value. Even if tidying your folder structure is not your priority at that stage, you can move files and folders safely from the catalog manager; you can find why you have a batch of imported duplicate files, and you can delete them if you are sure the information in those duplicates is not lost.
5 - Once you have started, backup regularly!!!
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